System and Method for Downlink Machine-To-Machine Communications

ABSTRACT

An embodiment method for downlink machine type communications (MTC), includes receiving, at a base station, parameters including a geographic location related to a remote equipment (RE), receiving a predicate identifying the RE, determining a target zone in which the RE is located, determining a radio bearer associated with the target zone, and transmitting a data packet and the predicate by the base station on the radio bearer to a plurality of REs disposed in the target zone, the plurality of REs comprising at least the RE.

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser.No. 62/084,429, filed on Nov. 25, 2014, entitled “System and Method forDownlink M2M Communications in 5G,” which application is herebyincorporated by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a system and method for wirelesscommunications, and, in particular embodiments, to a system and methodfor downlink machine type communications (MTC) on machine-to-machine(M2M) wireless transmission systems.

BACKGROUND

Machine-to-machine (M2M) networks are being developed to providelong-term monitoring and control services, using machine typecommunications (MTC) for applications such as traffic monitoring,environmental monitoring, battlefield surveillance, industrialmonitoring and control, etc. With an expectation that the number of MTCdevices will increase greatly in the coming years, mobile networkoperators are exploring new ways to serve these devices to open newrevenue streams.

SUMMARY

An embodiment method for downlink machine type communications (MTC),includes receiving, at a base station, parameters including a geographiclocation related to a remote equipment (RE), receiving a predicateidentifying the RE, determining a target zone in which the RE islocated, determining a radio bearer associated with the target zone, andtransmitting a data packet and the predicate by the base station on theradio bearer to a plurality of REs disposed in the target zone, theplurality of REs comprising at least the RE.

An embodiment method for downlink machine-type communications (MTC),includes receiving, at a network element, a data packet having at leastone first parameter comprising a at least one first geographic location,receiving a predicate associated with the data packet and determining abase station associated with the at least one first geographic location.Second parameters comprising at least one second geographic locationrelated to the first geographic location and further comprising a basestation identifier of the base station are generated, and the predicateand the data packet with the second parameters are transmitted to thebase station.

An embodiment network element includes a processor and a non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium connected to the processor. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium has stored thereoninstructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the networkelement to obtain a data packet having at least one first parametercomprising a geographic location, wherein the data packet is receivedover a communications interface, obtain a predicate associated with thedata packet and identify a network access point associated with thegeographic location. The instructions further cause the network elementto generate second parameters according to the geographic location andforward at least a portion of the data packet and the associatedpredicate to the identified network access point for transmission to adevice associated with the geographic location.

An embodiment network access point includes a transmitter, a processorconnected to the transmitter, and a non-transitory computer readablestorage medium connected to the processor. The non-transitory computerreadable storage medium has stored thereon instructions that, whenexecuted by the processor, cause the network access point to obtainparameters including a geographic location, and obtain data and apredicate identifying at least one remote equipment (RE), wherein theparameters, the data and the predicate are received in a data packetthrough the transmitter. The instructions further cause the networkaccess point to determine a target zone in which the at least one RE islocated, determine a radio bearer associated with the target zone, andtransmit, on the radio bearer through the transmitter, the predicate anda data packet comprising the data to the at least one RE disposed in thetarget zone.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a more complete understanding of the present invention, and theadvantages thereof, reference is now made to the following descriptionstaken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating grouping and association of zones and abase station in a cell according to some embodiments;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating grouping of remote equipments in atarget zone according to some embodiments;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a system for location-basedcommunication according to some embodiments;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for location-basedcommunication according to some embodiments;

FIG. 5 is a system diagram illustrating a computing platform that may beused for implementing, for example, the devices and methods describedherein, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for handling a datapacket at a network element according to some embodiments;

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for handling a datapacket at a access point according to some embodiments; and

FIGS. 8 and 9 are a flow diagrams illustrating methods for handling adata packet at a remote equipment according to some embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENTS

The structure, manufacture and use of the presently preferredembodiments are discussed in detail below. It should be appreciated,however, that the present invention provides many applicable inventiveconcepts that can be embodied in a wide variety of specific contexts.The specific embodiments discussed are merely illustrative of specificways to make and use the invention, and do not limit the scope of theinvention.

In traditional wireless networks, base station association is done on aper-user equipment (UE) basis, and downlink communication is based on UEidentification/Internet protocol (ID/IP) addressing. Thus, each UE candecode received signals to obtain individualized communications from abase station. Such an arrangement provides UE-specific communication,but requires an addressing resource to be dedicated to an individual UE.

Broadcast transmissions, such as those for television and for multimediabroadcast/multicast service (MBMS) and enhanced MBMS (eMBMS) aretransmitted without a specified target. Broadcast signals do not havetarget location information, and are decodable to all devices within atransmitter's range.

As the number and density of sensors in M2M communications systemsincreases, the complexity of routing communications to individual remoteequipments (REs) such as sensors or the like, increases. Generally, MTCsystems perform table lookup at routers to find routing information whentransporting MTC packets. Additional table lookups are performed at basestations for synchronizing transmission/reception with machines. Inparticular, for downlink MTC traffic in wireless networks one of themajor challenges is to control table lookup cost at individual networknodes. The increasing number and density of REs deployed in the networkcauses the lookup tables to become unwieldy due to the number of entriesin a lookup table for a particular area. When dealing with large numbersof REs, the table lookup cost may exceed allowable limits and introducesunacceptable delay in executing communications to the REs.

Location-based addressing permits offloading of location tracking andreduces the resources required to support increasing RE deployments. Inparticular, embodiments of the disclosed location-based communicationssystem provide a controllable lookup cost through location-based REgrouping and group-based cell or transmitter association,application-specific features for routing traffic, multi-casting andbroadcasting communications from a base station to individual REs or REgroups, and traffic filtering/selective communication. Those skilled inthe art will appreciate that this disclosure makes reference to cellassociation, which is well known in 3G and 4G mobile networks. Althoughnext generation networks may move away from a cellular structure, andanother term may be used, it should be understood for the purposes ofthis disclosure, that the term cell association is understood to coverany suitable replacement that associates a device (or group of devices)to a particular access point, or a set of access points that may serve alocation.

An embodiment enables carrying MTC service in 5G wireless communicationwith acceptable and controllable table lookup cost at base stations androuters. Table lookup cost at each base station can be controlled bylimiting the number of associated geographic zones, referred to hereinas zones, and by adjusting the granularity of the geographic zoning(e.g. changing squarization granularity). An embodiment enablesspecialized application-specific mobility tracking schemes in a broadlyapplicable way.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating grouping and association of zones 104with a base station 102 in a service area according to some embodiments.Inside a network coverage area, the network can be divided intogeographic regions associated with network access points (e.g. basestation 102). It is possible to further divide the coverage area of anetwork access point. In the example of FIG. 1, the coverage area 106can be divided intodistinct geographic zones. In the example of FIG. 1,coverage area 106 is divided into zones 104. The process of dividing acoverage area into zones is referred to as squarization. Although thepresent example makes use of zones 104 with square shapes, and thisdisclosure generically refers to the subdivided elements as beingsquare, it will be apparent to those that any shape zone may be used.The division into subdivision elements can be done in accordance withspecified resolution requirements. One example of such a resolutionrequirement is that no subdivision element (e.g. zone 104) can have morethan a threshold number of REs. It should also be understood that when acoverage region, such as a coverage area 106, is divided into elementssuch as zones 104, in some embodiments there may be a requirement thatall subdivision element be of the same size. Although onesimple-to-manage implementation may have a coverage area divided intoequally sized subdivision elements such that the subdivision elementstile to completely cover the coverage area, it should be understood thatthis is not a requirement. Those skilled in the art will appreciate thata coverage area may not be a regular shape, and it may not be possibleto completely cover the coverage area with the selected subdivisionshape.

It should be understood that if a coverage area is subdivided into aseries of two dimensional areas, three dimensional locations can beprojected onto a two dimensional map. Thus, for example, the height ofan RE is ignored and all REs that are within a given two dimensionalboundary are in the same subdivision. If greater resolution is required,the coverage of an access point, which is 3 dimensional (a coveragevolume), can be subdivided into three dimensional sub-divisions. In sucha case, a coverage volume can be subdivided into elements that may becubes, spheres, spheroids, or other three dimensional shapes. It shouldbe noted, that each shape, either two dimensional or three dimensional,can be associated with a network access point.

For the purposes of the following discussion, a two dimensionalsubdivision will be used, and all subdivision elements or zones will behave square shapes. This is for the sake of simplicity and ease ofunderstanding. Those skilled in the art will be able to apply theteachings of this reference to zone shapes other than squares in bothtwo and three dimensions.

A unique code is assigned to each zone 104 for identification. In someembodiments the unique code not only identifies the particular zone butcan also include information that identifies the associated networkaccess point such as a base station 102. The boundaries of each zone 104can be compactly represented by, for example, the north-west corner andits side length or resolution. The location of the northwest corner canbe specified in a number of different formats including its latitude andlongitude. For example, at 38 degrees north latitude, one degree oflatitude equals approximately 364,000 ft. (69 miles/111 km), one minuteequals 6068 ft. (1.15 miles/1851 m), and one second equals 101 ft. (30.8m). One-degree of longitude equals 288,200 ft. (54.6 miles/90.7 km), oneminute equals 4800 ft. (0.91 mile/1463 m), and one second equals 80 ft.(24.4 m). Thus, each zone 104 may be delineated by a division oflatitude and longitude. For example, each zone 104 may be two seconds oflatitude by two seconds of longitude, resulting in a zone that isapproximately 202 ft. by 160 ft. (61.6 m by 48.8 m). In such anembodiment, the zones 104 may have boundaries starting every two secondsof latitude and longitude. Thus, a first zone may be located with anorthwest corner at 32°46′42″N 96°48′28″W and an adjacent second zonemay be located with a northwest corner at 32°46′44″N 96°48′28″W. Analgorithm or other tracking method may be used to determine theboundaries of a zone by, for example, the zone ID.

In some embodiments, a network may maintain the associations betweenaccess points, or access point coverage areas such as cells, and themember zones 104 covered by the base station 102. In some embodiments, azone 104 may be associated with multiple base stations 102. A zonehierarchy may be used to facilitate the maintenance and tracking ofzones, as in a domain name system (DNS).

In some embodiments, the network may maintain per-base station coverageinformation indicating coverage of zones 104, and may include a boundingcoverage box 108 and a coverage contour 106. In such an embodiment,given a zone 104, the network determines the cell associated with aparticular location by narrowing down to base stations 102 whosebounding coverage boxes cover the zone and then examining thecorresponding coverage contours to determine whether a location of zone104 is associated with a particular base station 102. It should beunderstood that bounding box 108 is the smallest rectangle that coversall the zones 104 in coverage area 106.

In some embodiments, the network maintains statistical information onpath loss and (per service) MTC traffic load for each zone 104. Cellassociation for zones 104 can be optimized on the network for individualMTC services separately, or for any number (up to all) of MTC servicesjointly. Dynamic cell association can be realized through a close-loopfeedback system, where base station loading information and per zonetraffic quality information are utilized to adapt cell associations. Insome embodiments, cell association is determined based on the MTCstatistics and possibly the statistics of other traffic. For example, azone 104 at the edge of a coverage contour 106 may be assigned to analternate base station 102 when REs in the particular zone 104 areexperiencing excessive interference, when network traffic to the basestation 102 exceeds a particular threshold, when the number of REs inthe zone 104 exceed or fall below at threshold, or according to anyother network, transmission, or traffic metric.

Each base station 102 is associated with a set of zones 104 and maymaintain or use a separate radio bearer for each of these associatedzones 104. Thus, a base station 102 may communicate with each zone 104separately using the individualized radio bearer.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating grouping of REs 204A . . . 204D in atarget zone 202 according to some embodiments. A base station addressesor communicates with REs 204A . . . 204D on a zone-by-zone basis.

One or more REs 204A . . . 204D are locating in each zone 104, and whenan application transmits to one or more of the REs 204A . . . 204D, theRE is addressed in part by location. Based on the identified RE, anetwork controller designates the zone associated with the target as atarget zone 202. The association of REs 204A . . . 204D to zone 104 isperformed during the tracking of the location of the RE. Every RE 204A .. . 204D is either preconfigured with its geographic location or is ableto dynamically determine its geographic location through, for example,an equipped localization means such as global positioning system (GPS),triangulation by access points, inertial tracking, or the like. Thus, insome embodiments, a stationary sensor such as a traffic sensor, aweather sensor, a security sensor, seismic or environmental sensor, maybe assumed to be deployed at a fixed location. The location of astationary RE may be configured during deployment. This permits areduction in the overhead associated with obtaining geographic locationdata used to assign the RE to particular zone 104. In contrast, a mobilesensor such as a vehicle motion or control sensor, a portable sensor, amobile communications, a theft recovery device, or the like, may beequipped with active location determination systems, such as aGPS/GLONASS receiver, access point triangulation capability, or thelike, to dynamically determine the REs location.

In some embodiments, REs 204A . . . 204D are divided into groupsaccording to geographic location, the zone 104 associated with the REs204A . . . 204D, service, capability, device type, or the like. Forexample, all of the REs 204A . . . 204D located in in a target zone 202may form a group. REs 204A . . . 204D may also be associated with one ormore other groups based on other factors. For example, first REs 204Amay be weather monitoring sensors, second REs 204B may be vehiclevelocity sensors, third REs 204C may be a vehicle sensors configured forsensing vehicle velocity and weather conditions, and fourth REs 204D maybe other types of sensors. Thus, a group of REs in a zone may be dividedinto sub-groups according to the services the REs belong to or accordingto capabilities of each of the REs. In such an example, a first groupmay include all REs in a zone 104, and a second group 206A may be asub-group that includes REs 204A and 204C used by a weather stationmeasurement service. In other examples, another, third group 206B mayinclude REs in the zone 104 that have speed measurement capabilities,that are used by a traffic monitoring service, that are used by avehicle theft recovery service, or the like.

RE grouping happens automatically at each of the REs 204A . . . 204Dwhen the squarization resolution or zone boundaries and the RE locationare known to the RE 204A . . . 204D. The REs 204A . . . 204D store thegrouping information locally, reducing the computational load on thenetwork. Thus, each RE 204A . . . 204D may store information related tothe capabilities, service, device type and location of the RE, and mayrespond to communications indicating groups by groups IDs, or otherstored information. In some embodiments, RE groups are identified bytheir hosting zones. Each machine group automatically becomes associatedwith the associated base station of its hosting zone(s).

FIG. 3 is a system diagram illustrating a system 300 for location-basedcommunication according to some embodiments. In such an embodiment, anMTC application 306 generates a data packet intended for transmission toone or more REs. In some embodiments, the MTC application is anapplication such as a third party application, standalone application,or the like, which may be running on a server or a logical node. Alogical node is a virtualized node that implements one or someapplication-level functionalities. It is instantiated through SDT(software defined topology) and NFV (network function virtualization)techniques in the physical network infrastructure on select NFV-enablednetwork nodes.

The data packet is transmitted to a network element 304, and on to abase station 102. The network element 304 determines the relevant basestation 102 and passes the data packet to the base station 102. The basestation 102 determines a target zone 202 to which to send the packet,and then transits the packet on a bearer 322 associated with the targetzone 202.

For location-based communication, the MTC application 306 specifies auniversal unique ID such as a service identifier (SID) associated withthe MTC application 306 and a target location during a communicationsession. In some embodiments, the MTC application 306 generates at leastone packet, message, communication or the like with one or more firstparameters 308. The first parameters 308 include, in some embodiments,the SID or other information identifying the MTC application, the targetlocation of the targets RE(s) or RE group(s), a payload or data intendedfor the target RE(s) and a predicate or other identifier of the targetRE(s).

The target location may be a location related to an RE, an RE location,or the location of an RE group, zone 104, or base station 102. The MTCapplication 306 fetches each RE's location or RE group's location from astorage medium, such as a database, working memory, or the like. In someembodiments, the location of each RE is initially set when the RE isdeployed, for example in the case of stationary REs, or when the REregisters with or initially connects to the MTC application 306 ornetwork, for example, in the case of a mobile RE. In some embodiments,if an RE's location is not available at deployment time, the RE maycommunicate with the MTC application 306 to update the RE's currentlocation through uplink communication. The target location may indicatea single geographic point, a set of discrete geographic points, a seriesof continuous of geographic points, or a geographic area, a combinationof the same, or the like. Thus, the zones covering the target locationare the target zones. The REs in the target zones rely on the predicateto determine whether they are an intended receiver. In some embodiments,the RE or group location is latitude and/or longitude coordinates. Insome embodiments, the location of the target RE(s) may be representedby, for example, regions defined by a center point and a radius, a setof coordinates, a coordinate and resolution, a coordinate combined witha known resolution, a distinct latitude and longitude, a point ofinterest, geographic or structural feature, or the like. Thus, forexample, in the case where the application is location dependent, butnot machine or RE dependent, such as for use in a traffic conditionmonitoring application, the RE location may be a point of interest suchas an intersection, highway, building, or the like. In otherembodiments, the target location is a base station or base stationlocation, and a data packet may be transmitted to all REs served by thebase station, with the REs evaluating the predicate to determine whetherthey are an intended receiver. Thus, the location parameter sent to thebase station maybe blank or omitted, and the base station will transmitthe data packet to all REs in the base station transmission area.

The data packet and first parameters 308 are transmitted to a networkelement 304 such as an ingress router, control plane element, corenetwork element, or the like. In some embodiments, the network element304 is an ingress router that handles traffic generated outside thenetwork) or, in other embodiments, is a logical or virtual node thathandles traffic such as a packet data network gateway (P-GW), servinggateway (S-GW), mobility management entity (MME), or the like.

In some embodiments, the network element 304 submits informationregarding the data packet or first parameters to the control plane 312for identification of the cell and/or zone associated with the targetlocation or routing. The control plane, in some embodiments has entitiessuch as a cell finder 318, cell associater 316 and traffic engineeringcomponent 320. In some embodiments, the cell finder 318, cell associater316 and traffic engineering component 320 are disposed on a dedicatednetwork device, are part of the control plane 312, are separateentities, are part of the network element 304, or are part of an entityon the network.

Cell association information for zones is maintained by a cellassociater 316 in the control plane 312. The network calculates, foreach base station 102, service traffic characteristics 314 and considersthe base station 102 as a virtual machine for the service trafficcharacteristic monitoring. REs or zones 104 are automatically associatedwith base stations 102 according to their location, traffic and loadparameters, zone loading characteristics, per-zone path loss statistics,or any other network performance statistics. The cell associater 316maintains and updates the cell-to-zone association information in astorage medium such as a database, working memory, or the like. In someembodiments, the location or boundaries of the zones 104 are part of thecell-to-zone association, permitting lookup of a zone 104 and associatedbase station 102 using a given location.

In some embodiments, a cell finder 318 may be disposed in the controlplane 312 and will have hardware, or a combination of software and therelevant hardware for executing the software, for finding a cell basedon the location in the first parameters 308. In the control plane 312,the cell finder 318 takes the cell association decision/update from thecell associater 316 or from a storage location, and maintains theinformation in such a way that target base stations 102 can be quicklyidentified by target location. For example, the cell finder 318 maymaintain the cell associations in working memory in a binary tree datastructure, may generate one or more formulas representing the cellassociations, store the cell associations in a database structure suchas a structure query language (SQL) or no-SQL database arrangement, orthe like.

In an embodiment, a network operator makes geographic segmentation (e.g.squarization) public. An MTC service customer specifies machinedistribution, in terms of zones and per zone machine count, and machinetraffic distribution, in terms of per-zone data rate, along with otherinformation. The information is submitted to the network in, forexample, a service request.

The network then creates and maintains a service-customizedinformation-centric network architecture for the MTC service accordingto the virtual machines. The virtual machine traffic characteristics canbe updated over time through service traffic measurement done atrespective base stations. When necessary, the architecture can beupdated or re-generated using the new information. Machines use thisarchitecture to report their readings and location information.

The control plane 312 computes the target zone 202 according to thetarget location embedded in the packet and determines the target basestation 102 for the service. In some embodiments, the network element304 sends a second packet to the target base station 102. The controlplane 312 provisions the traffic through a traffic engineering component320, sets up the data forwarding path in the data plane, or providestraffic engineering information to the network element, which determinesa route to the target base station according to the traffic engineeringinformation. In some embodiments, the packet has second parameters 310that include a base station identifier (BS ID) determined by the controlplane 312, which is used for routing the second packet to the targetbase station 102. The second parameters 310 also include the predicate,SID, location and data or payload from the first parameters 308. In someembodiments, the network element 304 modifies the packet sent from theMTC application 306 by adding the BS ID or modifying other elements ofthe packet. In other embodiments, the network element 304 re-forms orgenerates a new packet with the second parameters 310 based the firstparameters 308. Additionally, in some embodiments, the location in thesecond parameters 310 is a second geographic location related to thefirst geographic location in the first parameters 308. For example, thelocation in the second parameters may be the same, covered by, part of,described by, or indicated by, the location in the first parameters 308.

In other embodiments, the network element 304 has hardware and softwarewith instructions for determining the base station and appropriatetarget zone 202 associated with the location in the first parameters.

The data packet is then routed toward the target base station 102through, for example, a dedicated control channel, traffic-engineeredpath(s) or plain (not traffic engineered) path(s). In some embodiments,upon receiving a data packet, the base station 102 retrieves the serviceID and the target location from the data packet, computes the targetzone 202, obtains the corresponding radio bearer 322, and broadcasts thedata packet to the REs in the target zone 202. In some embodiments, sucha location dependent routing process is performed for each individualpacket, and in other embodiments, the location dependent routing processis performed when establishing a connection, with the connection beingmaintained through the selected route for transmission of multiplepackets.

For application-defined traffic filtering, the MTC application 306 mayencapsulate a predicate into each data packet as part of the first andsecond parameters 308 and 310. When an RE receives a data packet, the REevaluates data stored on the RE against the predicate to determinewhether the RE qualifies or meets the criteria of the predicate. If theRE determines that the RE is one of the intended recipients of thepacket, it keeps the packet for processing or otherwise taking actionaccording to the data or payload. If the RE determines that it does notqualify, it ignores or discards the packet. The MTC application 306 hasthe freedom to define such predicates to enable selective communicationor traffic filtering.

In some embodiments, the predicate is carried in the data packet itself,either as part of the header, or as part of a standard transmissionprotocol data payload. In other embodiments, the base station 102transmits the predicate on a control channel or in control channelspace, permitting the RE to access the predicate without decoding thedata packet. In such an embodiment, the data packet is transmittedseparately from the predicate and can, therefore, be encoded while thepredicate is unencoded or is encoded with a less processor-intensiveencoding scheme than the data packet.

In some embodiments, the predicate may simply specify an internalmachine ID (or a group of IDs), enforcing a uni-casting effect asopposed to a multi-casting effect. For example, the predicate is set upto cover machines whose remaining battery power is lower than aparticular threshold. In other embodiments, the predicate may be leftblank or omitted entirely to indicate that the transmission is intendedfor every RE in a particular zone, effectively creating a multi-casttransmission using the same format as a uni-cast transmission.Similarly, the location in the second parameters sent to the basestation may be left blank or omitted, and the base station will thentransmit the data packet to each RE in the base station's transmissionarea and rely on each of the REs to determine, based on the predicate,whether the particular RE is an intended receiver.

Downlink MTC communication may happen when the MTC Application 306 wantsto transmit information (e.g., a control command, such as updating smartmeters with a new transmission schedule due to peak hour or businesslogic change in an area). The data or payload transmitted to the REs mayhave data, commands. As another example of transmitting a controlcommand, the MTC application 306 may want to switch sensors' operationmodel in a traffic condition monitoring application for extendedlifetime, such as when the sensors with a battery power lower than athreshold are to be put into sleep. The predicate is set to reflect thelogic. Downlink MTC may happen when an MTC application 306 or logicalnode wants to transmit information to REs, as a result of in-networkprocessing, for example, when a fire is detected in a woody area in awild fire monitoring application, and fire-fighter actuators need to beactivated. The predicate is set to reflect only fire-fighter typemachines within a certain distance to the area center are intendedreceivers. In this case, the traffic is generated by someapplication-layer data process instantiated at the logical node.

In some embodiments, the predicate may be a SQL-style predicate, such astring or statement having one or more Boolean statements or arguments.Thus, complicated logic can be embedded in the predicate. For example,the predicate may be a string such as “GROUPID=07 AND POWER<10%”indicating that REs within the zone who are part of Group 07 and whosepower level is lower than 10% should decode and execute the data orpayload. Another predicate string may be “DEVICEID=12345” indicatingthat a specific RE having the device ID of 12345 should decode thepacket and execute the data or payload. Yet another predicate string maybe “DEVICETYPE=WEATHER AND CAPABILITY=TEMPERATURE” indicating that allREs that are identified as being a device type “WEATHER” (or any otherspecified device type) and having a capability of measuring temperature(or any other specified capability) should decode the packet and executethe payload. It should, be understood that these string predicateexamples are intended to be exemplary and are not limiting, as anyBoolean operation, script, or other predicate may be used.

In other embodiments, the predicate may have a data structure in a knownarrangement that is evaluated against, or compared to, data stored onthe RE. For example, the predicate may be binary data that is arrangedin a known predetermined structure or order, and the testing of thepredicate against data stored in the RE may be performed by bitwiseBoolean logic. For example, a binary predicate may be 1010 0001indicating data such as the device type, for example, in the first 4bits, and capabilities, for example, in each of the second 4 bit. An REof a different group may generate binary data of 1000 0001 or an RE nothaving the desired capabilities may generate binary data of 1010 0010.In such examples, binary data generated by the RE may be compared in abit-wise fashion against the binary predicate using, for example, a notexclusive OR (XNOR) operator. Thus, if each bit of the generated binarydata matches the predicate, the result of the XNOR comparison would betrue. In the above examples, the comparison result would be false sinceeach of the generated binary data sets has at least one bit that doesnot match the corresponding bit in the binary predicate.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 400 for location-basedcommunication according to some embodiments. It should be understood bythose skilled in the art that the flowchart of FIG. 4 shows theoperation of different nodes in the transmission of data from a sourceto the destination RE. It should be understood that the steps shown inFIG. 4 are not all carried out at a single node, and the operation ofany given node can be independent from the operation of another node,and the function of any node should not be considered to be reliant onthe operation of another node. This figure is intended for ease ofunderstanding and should not be interpreted as indicating that all nodesmust be present or operating exactly as shown. Variation in theoperation of one node does not necessarily impact the operation of othernodes. According to some embodiments, an MTC application or logical nodedetermines, in block 402, that data needs to be sent to one or more REs.In block 404, the MTC application or virtual node determines which RE(s)to send data to, and in block 406, determines the location of the RE(s).In some embodiments, the determination that data needs to be sent inblock 402 is made as a result of the MTC application or virtual nodeexecuting software that generates a command, message, data, alert or thelike that requires communication to a specific RE or REs, a group ofREs, a class of REs, or the like. Thus, for example, an MTC applicationmay determine that a particular RE needs to be queried for new data, andmay send the RE a command that the RE gather and transmit data. In suchan example, the MTC application may determine that a particular RE needsto be sent data, and so the determination that data needs to be sent,and the determination of which RE should be sent data may be performedin a single process.

The location of the target RE is determined in block 406. In someembodiments, the location is determined based on the identification ofthe target RE, and in other embodiments, a location is determined, andthe relevant REs are determined from the location, the base stationserving the relevant REs, or the location of a base station serving therelevant REs. For example, where an MTC application or virtual nodeneeds to send data or commands to a specific RE or groups of REs, thedetermination may be made with reference to the RE, and the locationdetermined from the information related to the RE. In another example,an MTC application or virtual node that needs to transmit data to adevice type, service class, particular area or group may determine thelocation of the area or group, and then determine the REs correspondingto the area or group. In some embodiments, the location may be thelocation or a landmark point of interest, group, or another non-REspecific location, and the location may be used to determine therelevant base station, with the predicate identifying target REs by, forexample, device type, service class, area, RE group or the like.

In block 408, the predicate identifying the target remote equipment isgenerated. In some embodiments, the predicate is generated by the MTCapplication or the virtual node according to the identification of REs,groups, location of the target REs, device type of target REs, targetservice type, or the like.

The data packet is generated in block 410 by, or under the control ofthe MTC application or virtual node. For example, the MTC application orvirtual node may generate the data packet directly, or may send amessage or control signal to another server such as a database, businesslogic server, web server or the like to generate the data packet.Additionally, in some embodiments, the data packet includes firstparameters, including the predicate. In such an embodiment, the firstparameters, including the predicate, may be disposed in the header ofthe data packet, or in the data payload of the data packet. In otherembodiments, the predicate is generate and maintained separately fromthe data packet and maintained, for example, in memory or like.

In block 414, network loading and/or transmission quality statistics aretracked by, for example, network elements. In some embodiments, networkdevices such as routers, control plane elements, eNodeBs, base stations,and the like, report network conditions characteristics such as thenetwork loading and transmission quality statistics, to, for example thecell associater, which associates REs or zones with cells of basestations in block 416. REs or zones are automatically associated withbase stations 102 according to their location, traffic and loadparameters, zone loading characteristics, per zone path loss statistics,or any other network performance statistics.

After the predicate and the data packet are generated in blocks 408 and410, the data packet and the predicate, if separate from the datapacket, are transmitted to the network device in block 412. In block418, the target base station is determined. In some embodiments, thetarget base station is determined by the network element, or by thenetwork element transmitting the location information to the cellfinder, which determines the cell and/or zone associated with aparticular location.

It has been determined that avoiding communications based on the uniqueidentifier of an RE reduces the size of lookup tables on the network.This is because a location-based communication merely requires that thenetwork track the zone and base station of the RE, with the network andbase station determining the relevant zone and base station from alocation. Thus, an unlimited number of REs may theoretically beassociated with a zone without increasing the processing power or memoryneeded by the network. Additionally, the association between aparticular RE and a location is off-loaded to the MTC application orvirtual node. Thus, the processing associated with location-based REtracking may be offloaded to the party or device initiating thetransmission. Furthermore, reception or handling of the transmissions isoffloaded to the REs so that particular REs do not need to be identifiedor tracked by the network. The use of a predicate permits the MTCapplication or virtual node to identify one or more REs by group,service type, ID, location, device type, or the like without requiringthe network itself track the REs.

Once the target base station is determined, a route for transmission ofthe data to the target base station is determined in block 420. In someembodiments, the network element receives routing information from thetraffic engineering component, and in some embodiments, the networkelement determines the route to the target base station according toinformation received from the traffic engineering component which may begenerated according to network load or congestion information, networkavailability or capacity information, or the like.

In block 422, the network element sends the data packet and predicate tothe target base station using the routing information received from thetraffic engineering component or generated by the network element. Afterreceiving the data packet and predicate, the base station determines thezone corresponding to the target location identified for the data packetin block 424. In some embodiments, the cell associater or cell finderprovides the target zone information to the network element, whichtransmits the zone information to the base station as part of the datapacket, as part of the second parameters, with the predicate, orseparately from the data packet and predicate. In other embodiments, thebase station determines the zone from the location according to thelocation and a zone association algorithm, table or other lookup or zoneassociation mechanism.

In block 426, the base station determines the radio bearer associatedwith the target zone. In some embodiments, the base station has a radiobearer previously associated with the target zone, and determines theappropriate radio bearer from the target zone that was previouslyidentified. In other embodiments, the base station assigns a radiobearer to the zone upon a data packet for the target zone beingreceived.

In block 428, the data packet is transmitted by the base station to theREs in the target zone. In some embodiments, the data packet istransmitted on the selected radio bearer to all REs within the zone. Insuch embodiments, the base station relies on each RE to discard packetsnot intended for the particular RE. In other embodiments, the datapacket is transmitted to the REs in the zone as part of a multi-cast,uni-cast, general broadcast, or the like. In block 432, the predicate istransmitted by the base station to the REs in the target zone. Invarious embodiments, the predicate is transmitted as part of the datapacket, separate from the data packet on the same radio bearer as thedata packet, in the same traffic channel as the data packet, on acontrol channel, on a traffic channel separate from the data packet, orthe like. In some embodiments, the data packet and predicate aretransmitted at the same time, and in other embodiments, the data packetand predicate are transmitted at different times.

In block 430 the REs receive the data packet, and in block 434 REsreceive the predicate. In block 436, each RE evaluates the predicate todetermine whether the particular RE meets the criteria set forth in thepredicate. If the RE fails to pass evaluation of the predicate, wherethe RE fails to meet the conditions set forth in the particular RE, thatRE discards the data packet in block 438. Otherwise, if the RE passesvaluation of the predicate, with the RE meeting the conditions set forthin the predicate, the RE then decodes, where applicable, and processesthe data packet in block 440. In some embodiments where the predicate issent separately from the data packet, the data packet may be decodedseparately from the predicate after the RE determines that the RE meetsthe conditions in the predicate. The RE may also, in some embodiments,then read, use, execute, or otherwise process data carried in the datapacket. In some embodiments, the data packet may be transmitted onlyupon the RE's request after the RE determines that the RE meets theconditions in the predicate.

FIG. 5 is a system diagram illustrating a computing platform or hardwaresystem 500 that may be used for implementing, for example, the devicesand methods described herein, in accordance with an embodiment. Specificdevices may utilize all of the components shown, or only a subset of thecomponents, and levels of integration may vary from device to device.Furthermore, a device may contain multiple instances of a component,such as multiple processing units 502, processors 504, memories 522,transmitters, receivers, etc. The hardware system 500 may comprise aprocessing unit 502 equipped with one or more input/output devices 510,such as a speaker, microphone, touchscreen, keypad,mouse/keyboard/printer, user interface 508 such as a display, and thelike. The processing unit 502 may include a central processing unit(CPU) such as a processor 504, memory 522, a mass storage device 520, aninterface adapter 506, and an I/O interface 512 connected to a bus 518.

The bus 518 may be one or more of any type of several bus architecturesincluding a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, videobus, or the like. The processor 504 may comprise any type of electronicdata processor, and may be multiple processors. The memory 522 maycomprise any type of non-transitory system memory such as static randomaccess memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), synchronousDRAM (SDRAM), read-only memory (ROM), a combination thereof, or thelike. In an embodiment, the memory 522 may include ROM for use atboot-up, and DRAM for program and data storage for use while executingprograms.

The mass storage device 520 may comprise any type of non-transitorycomputer readable medium or storage device configured to store data,programs, and other information and to store instructions that forexecuting the methods a processes disclosed herein or make the data,programs, and other information accessible via the bus. In someembodiments, the mass storage device may have stored thereoninstructions for causing the processor 504 to perform the method stepsdescribed above. The mass storage device 520 may comprise, for example,one or more of a solid state drive, hard disk drive, a magnetic diskdrive, an optical disk drive, or the like.

The interface adapter 506 and the I/O interface 512 provide interfacesto couple external input and output devices to the processing unit 502.As illustrated, examples of input and output devices include the displayor user interface 508 coupled to the interface adapter 506 and theinput/output devices 510, such a mouse/keyboard/printer, coupled to theI/O interface 512. Other devices may be coupled to the processing unit502, and additional or fewer interface cards may be utilized. Forexample, a serial interface such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) (notshown) may be used to provide an interface for a printer, or a digitalinterface may be provided to permit configuration of hardware systems500 such as REs, base stations, network entities, or the like.

The processing unit 502 also includes one or more network interfaces514, which may comprise networking adapters, wired links, such as anEthernet cable or the like, and/or wireless links to access nodes,different networks or different network elements such as REs. Thenetwork interface 514 allows the processing unit 502 to communicate viathe networks 516. For example, the network interface 514 may providewireless communication via one or more transmitters/transmit antennasand one or more receivers/receive antennas, or by one or more antennasand a transceiver. Thus, the base station may have a network interface514 that is a wireless transceiver and antenna for communicating withREs and additional network interfaces 514 for communicating with networkdevices such as the network element. Additionally, the REs may also behardware systems 500 having wireless or wired network interfaces 514 forcommunicating, directly or indirectly, with the base station. In anembodiment, the processing unit 502 is coupled to a local-area networkor a wide-area network for data processing and communications withremote devices, such as other processing units, the Internet, routers,other networking devices, remote storage facilities, or the like. Inother embodiments, the processing system is a networking device, networkelement, server hosting an MTC application, cell finder, cell associate,traffic engineering component, RE, or the like and the network interfaceis a network card or optical interface that permits the processing unit502 to communicate with the network.

As discussed above, the disclosed embodiments allow for location basedaddressing. With expected growth in the number of deployed MTC devices,the manner in which the network will assign addresses to MTC devicesmust be considered. If all MTC devices are to be provided with uniqueaddresses, the resources dedicated to managing the addressing of deviceswill grow linearly with the growth of MTC devices. This may be eitherunwanted or infeasible for operators. To reduce the addressing burden, amethod of location based addressing is provided. The coverage area of amobile network can be considered to be divided into coverage areas ofthe access points in the mobile network. It will be understood thatalthough the term coverage area may appear to be directed to atwo-dimensional map, access points have three-dimensional coverage. Thedisclosed location based addressing method further subdivides thecoverage area of an access point into sub-division elements or zones.These sub-division elements can be squares, or other shapes, that aretiled to cover an access point's coverage area, or they could be threedimensional shapes that are tiled to cover the three-dimensionalcoverage volume of an access point.

Each sub-division element is assigned a unique location based address.In one embodiment, each sub-division element in a coverage area isidentically sized, and the geographic location of a corner (e.g. thenorthwest corner) of the element is used as the address of the element.The access point can assign a bearer to each sub-division element.

From the perspective of the M2M Application Server, MTC devices canassociated with locations. These locations can be obtained from the MTCdevice, from the network, or the locations can be assigned during orbefore configuration of the device. The M2M application server canaddress a single device with a single location, or a plurality ofdevices by specifying a geographic area. Data destined for one or moreMTC devices can be sent to a network gateway with the geographiclocation or area as an addressing parameter.

Upon receiving a data packet, a network gateway can carry out a methodsimilar to that shown in FIG. 6. Those skilled in the art willappreciate that FIG. 6 illustrates one embodiment of a portion of theoverall process flow shown in FIG. 4. The gateway receives the packet instep 600. The packet is typically received from an M2M applicationserver and includes a location based address. As noted above, thisaddress could be a specific geographic location, or a geographic range.In step 602, the provided location is used to determine which networkaccess point (e.g. basestation 102) can be used to reach the intendeddevice. When a specific location is provided, it may be possible thatmore than one access point is suitable, in which case the gateway caneither delegate the actual AP select to another network node or it canselect an AP using other network information. In other embodiments, whena geographic range is provided, it may be that the range requires morethan one AP for suitable coverage. In this case, more than one AP can bedetermined as the appropriate AP in step 602. In step 604, the gatewaycan forward the received packet to the AP (or APs) that are identifiedin step 602.

An AP that receives a forwarded packet from a gateway, can use themethod illustrated in FIG. 7. In step 606, the network AP receives apacket with location based addressing information. In step 608, a regionwithin the coverage area associated with the AP is selected. This regionmay be a strict subset of the AP coverage area, or it could include allof the AP coverage area. The region can be based on two or threedimensional subdivisions of the coverage area/volume. If the locationbased addressing information is a specific geographic location, theregion will likely be a single subdivision (e.g. one zone 104). If thelocation based addressing information specifies a range, the region maybe a collection of subdivisions (e.g. more than one zones 104). In step640, the received packet is transmitted to all the devices in theselected region.

It should be noted that if the M2M AS wants to ensure that only aparticular device (or subset of devices) is able to decode the datapacket, it can use an optional feature, referred to as predicate basedmessaging. The data packet is sent to all REs in the region identifiedby the AP. In the payload of the packet, a predicate can be used tospecify which devices, or classes of devices, the message is intendedfor. This may be done using application layer encoding, the particularnature of the implementation of which is not germane to the presentdiscussion. The predicate may be associated with the packet at the M2MAS, at the gateway, or even at the AP. Thus the transmission of thepacket to the AP in step 604, and the transmission of the packet fromthe AP to the plurality of devices in the selected zone in step 610, maybe accompanied by the associated predicate (which may be embedded in thedata packet).

Where a predicate is employed, methods shown in FIGS. 8 and 9 can beused by the MTC devices in the selected region. All devices in theselected region are able to receive a packet (with a predicate) that hasbeen transmitted to a location based address as shown in step 612. In614 the MTC device determines that it is an intended recipient of thedata packet through examination or execution of the associatedpredicate. In step 616, the data packet is decoded by the MTD device. Inthe alternate, after receiving the packet in step 618, the MTC devicedetermines that it is not the intended recipient based on a decoding ofthe predicate in step 620. In this case, the MTC device will discard theundecoded packet in step 622. It should be understood that in thedescription of FIG. 9, the term undecoded refers to an application layerconsideration of the packet, and not a network level function.

An embodiment method for downlink machine type communications (MTC),includes receiving, at a base station, parameters including a geographiclocation related to a remote equipment (RE), receiving a predicateidentifying the RE, determining a target zone in which the RE islocated, determining a radio bearer associated with the target zone, andtransmitting a data packet and the predicate by the base station on theradio bearer to a plurality of REs disposed in the target zone, theplurality of REs comprising at least the RE. In some embodiments, theparameters further include a service identifier (SID) of a machine typecommunication (MTC) application. In some embodiments, the predicate istransmitted on a control channel, and in some embodiments, the datapacket is transmitted on a traffic channel. In some embodiments, thepredicate identifies a group of REs.

An embodiment method for downlink machine-type communications (MTC),includes receiving, at a network element, a data packet having at leastone first parameter comprising a at least one first geographic location,receiving a predicate associated with the data packet and determining abase station associated with the at least one first geographic location.Second parameters comprising at least one second geographic locationrelated to the first geographic location and further comprising a basestation identifier of the base station are generated, and the predicateand the data packet with the second parameters are transmitted to thebase station. In some embodiments, the method further includesdetermining, according to traffic engineering information, a route tothe base station across a network to which the network element isconnected, where the predicate and the data packet are transmitted tothe base station using the route. In some embodiments, the determiningthe base station associated with the at least one first geographiclocation includes retrieving, from a cell finder entity, cellassociation information describing the base station associated with theat least one first geographic location. In some embodiments, thepredicate and the second parameters are each part of the data packetwhen the data packet is transmitted to the base station. In someembodiments, the determining the base station associated with the atleast one first geographic location includes sending target zoneinformation associated with the at least one second geographic locationto the base station.

An embodiment network element includes a processor and a non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium connected to the processor. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium has stored thereoninstructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the networkelement to obtain a data packet having at least one first parametercomprising a geographic location, wherein the data packet is receivedover a communications interface, obtain a predicate associated with thedata packet and identify a network access point associated with thegeographic location. The instructions further cause the network elementto generate second parameters according to the geographic location andforward at least a portion of the data packet and the associatedpredicate to the identified network access point for transmission to adevice associated with the geographic location. In some embodiments, theinstructions further cause the network element to determine, accordingto traffic engineering information, a route to the network access pointacross a network to which the network element is connected. In someembodiments, the instructions causing the network element to identifythe network access point associated with the geographic location includeinstructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the networkelement to retrieve, from a cell finder entity, cell associationinformation describing the network access point associated with thegeographic location. In some embodiments, the predicate and the secondparameters are each part of the data packet when the data packet istransmitted to the network access point. In some embodiments, theinstructions causing the network element to determine the network accesspoint associated with the geographic location comprise instructionsthat, when executed by the processor, cause the network element to sendtarget zone information associated with the geographic location to thenetwork access point.

An embodiment network access point includes a transmitter, a processorconnected to the transmitter, and a non-transitory computer readablestorage medium connected to the processor. The non-transitory computerreadable storage medium has stored thereon instructions that, whenexecuted by the processor, cause the network access point to obtainparameters including a geographic location, and obtain data and apredicate identifying at least one remote equipment (RE), wherein theparameters, the data and the predicate are received in a data packetthrough the transmitter. The instructions further cause the networkaccess point to determine a target zone in which the at least one RE islocated, determine a radio bearer associated with the target zone, andtransmit, on the radio bearer through the transmitter, the predicate anda data packet comprising the data to the at least one RE disposed in thetarget zone. In some embodiments, the parameters further include aservice identifier (SID) of a machine type communication (MTC)application. In some embodiments, the instructions causing the networkaccess point to transmit the predicate and the data packet further causethe network element to transmit the predicate on a control channel. Insome embodiments, the instructions causing the network access point totransmit the predicate and the data packet further cause the networkelement to transmit the data packet on a traffic channel. In someembodiments, the predicate identifies a group of REs including the atleast one RE.

While this invention has been described with reference to illustrativeembodiments, this description is not intended to be construed in alimiting sense. Various modifications and combinations of theillustrative embodiments, as well as other embodiments of the invention,will be apparent to persons skilled in the art upon reference to thedescription. It is therefore intended that the appended claims encompassany such modifications or embodiments.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for downlink machine type communications(MTC), comprising: receiving, at a base station, parameters including ageographic location related to a remote equipment (RE); receiving apredicate identifying the RE; determining a target zone in which the REis located; determining a radio bearer associated with the target zone;and transmitting a data packet and the predicate by the base station onthe radio bearer to a plurality of REs disposed in the target zone, theplurality of REs comprising at least the RE.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein the parameters further include a service identifier (SID) of amachine type communication (MTC) application.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein the predicate is transmitted on a control channel.
 4. The methodof claim 3, wherein the data packet is transmitted on a traffic channel.5. The method of claim 1, wherein the predicate identifies a group ofREs.
 6. A method for downlink machine-type communications (MTC),comprising: receiving, at a network element, a data packet having atleast one first parameter comprising a at least one first geographiclocation; receiving a predicate associated with the data packet;determining a base station associated with the at least one firstgeographic location; generating second parameters comprising at leastone second geographic location related to the first geographic locationand further comprising a base station identifier of the base station;and transmitting the predicate and the data packet with the secondparameters to the base station.
 7. The method of claim 6, furthercomprising: determining, according to traffic engineering information, aroute to the base station across a network to which the network elementis connected; wherein the predicate and the data packet are transmittedto the base station using the route.
 8. The method of claim 6, whereinthe determining the base station associated with the at least one firstgeographic location comprises: retrieving, from a cell finder entity,cell association information describing the base station associated withthe at least one first geographic location.
 9. The method of claim 6,wherein the predicate and the second parameters are each part of thedata packet when the data packet is transmitted to the base station. 10.The method of claim 6, wherein the determining the base stationassociated with the at least one first geographic location comprises:sending target zone information associated with the at least one secondgeographic location to the base station.
 11. A network elementcomprising: a processor; and a non-transitory computer readable storagemedium connected to the processor and having stored thereon instructionsthat, when executed by the processor, cause the network element to:obtain a data packet having at least one first parameter comprising ageographic location, wherein the data packet is received over acommunications interface; obtain a predicate associated with the datapacket; identify a network access point associated with the geographiclocation; generate second parameters according to the geographiclocation; and forward at least a portion of the data packet and theassociated predicate to the identified network access point fortransmission to a device associated with the geographic location. 12.The network element of claim 11, wherein non-transitory computerreadable storage medium further has stored thereon instructions that,when executed by the processor, cause the network element to: determine,according to traffic engineering information, a route to the networkaccess point across a network to which the network element is connected.13. The network element of claim 11, wherein the instructions causingthe network element to identify the network access point associated withthe geographic location comprise instructions that, when executed by theprocessor, cause the network element to: retrieve, from a cell finderentity, cell association information describing the network access pointassociated with the geographic location.
 14. The network element ofclaim 11, wherein the predicate and the second parameters are each partof the data packet when the data packet is transmitted to the networkaccess point.
 15. The network element of claim 11, wherein theinstructions causing the network element to determine the network accesspoint associated with the geographic location comprise instructionsthat, when executed by the processor, cause the network element to: sendtarget zone information associated with the geographic location to thenetwork access point.
 16. A network access point, comprising: atransmitter; a processor connected to the transmitter; and anon-transitory computer readable storage medium connected to theprocessor and having stored thereon instructions that, when executed bythe processor, cause the network access point to: obtain parametersincluding a geographic location; obtain data and a predicate identifyingat least one remote equipment (RE), wherein the parameters, the data andthe predicate are received in a data packet through the transmitter;determine a target zone in which the at least one RE is located;determine a radio bearer associated with the target zone; and transmit,on the radio bearer through the transmitter, the predicate and a datapacket comprising the data to the at least one RE disposed in the targetzone.
 17. The network access point of claim 16, wherein the parametersfurther include a service identifier (SID) of a machine typecommunication (MTC) application.
 18. The network access point of claim16, wherein the instructions causing the network access point totransmit the predicate and the data packet comprise instructions that,when executed by the processor, cause the network access point totransmit the predicate on a control channel.
 19. The network accesspoint of claim 18, wherein the instructions causing the processor totransmit the predicate and the data packet further comprise instructionsthat, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to transmitthe data packet on a traffic channel.
 20. The network access point ofclaim 16, wherein the predicate identifies a group of REs including theat least one RE.